The Price of Silence

“Our lives begin to end, the day we become silent
about things that matter.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up." (Pastor Martin Niemöller)


The Price of Silence
Christopher Bogart

Silence is always profound,
No matter the message.

It rarely chatters,
Sometimes punctuates,
So often communicates
Not in pages, but
In volumes.

It speaks
When our voices
Can no longer be heard;
It cries from the darkness
Of our frailties,
Our fears.

It speaks
To what we wish
We had the courage to say
But were unwilling,
Or unable,
To find the words to say it.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer broke
That silence which maintains
Itself in fear, and fear alone,
Until no voices
Can be heard.

He died
In a stripped suit
In the mud
Of Flossenburg.